An Unlikely Courtship
by tala-hiding
Summary: When a mysterious group takes away Temperance Brennan and wipes her memory, will Booth be able to find her and bring her back? Set sometime during Season 6, before Hannah's departure. AU. ON HIATUS.
1. Prologue

**Title**: An Unlikely Courtship

**Rating**: T

**Summary**: When a mysterious group takes away Temperance Brennan and wipes her memory, will Booth be able to find her and bring her back? Set sometime during Season 6, before Hannah's departure. AU.

**Disclaimer**: Characters from _Bones _are the property of Hart Hanson and 20th Century Fox. No money is being made out of this work of fiction.

* * *

Prologue

They took her away.

They took her away in the dead of night, where the only sounds heard were the occasional rumble of cars along deserted streets and the scurry of rats foraging for their meals. They gagged her and blindfolded her and led her out of her apartment, blind and mute, silent tears flowing down her cheeks. The cool August air caressed her bare legs, reminding her of another evening, another day - perhaps in another universe, for all she cared - when she was wearing a knee-length skirt the color of plums, and laughing at something her partner had said while he was walking her home from yet another meal. Now, the sidewalk felt slick and damp underneath her feet, and she didn't know whether or not she was even breathing as they threw her into the back of a trunk and slammed the lid shut on her.

Terror, unrelenting and surprising, clawed into her brain. She felt herself jostle and bounce as the vehicle drove down the almost-abandoned streets of Washington, DC. Somehow, she was back inside that trunk again, her hands still soapy and warm from doing the dishes, the crack of porcelain hitting the floor still reverberating in her ear. She wanted to cry, beg, plead to someone, anyone, to help her, to simply let her out. A moan escaped the cloth gag around her lips.

Hodgins wasn't here - for a moment, she was back underground, back in the car that transformed into a tomb - and yet she could still hear her colleague's labored breathing, his cry of pain when she staunched the wound on his leg, the warmth of his body as he hugged her, when they thought they were going to die. There's that word again: _die._ Death. She trafficked in death daily, her expertise was in the manner of how death was dealt, human to human. She had seen it all: ancient remains succumbing to the modern reasoning of why a murder was committed in the first place. It was all the same. Jealousy, greed, revenge. Throughout human history, there arose patterns - and it was her job to read the patterns.

She tried to control her breathing and ascertain where she was going. While she didn't have Zack's skill of calculating distance based on vehicular speed, she could tell that they were going quickly, and based on the way the car moved, there were at least three other people in the vehicle. Despite the fact that her hands were bound behind her back, she attempted to grope the floor of the trunk, trying to figure out what could be useful for her escape. The heel of her feet pressed against the grooves of a spare tire. There was a plastic bottle of... something, she wasn't quite sure, but there was no scent of gasoline in the small space. Liquid definitely; the container was quite stable despite the jostling of the car. She struggled to move, searching for the familiar curve of a crowbar or any other mechanical equipment that would allow her to fight. But aside from a few dirty rags, there was nothing else inside the trunk.

Before she could move on to another plan, she felt the car stop. Scurrying back into the trunk as far as possible, she attempted to wedge herself against the back of the passenger seat, pushing with all her might. There must be a way out of here. Her fingers scrabbled for purchase, even as the trunk lid popped open and two pairs of strong hands hauled her out of the trunk and set her, trembling, on her feet. Somebody pushed her forward, and another pair of hands guided her towards a chair. She felt fingers touch the back of her head, untie the knots of the blindfold that was pressing against her skull. The piece of dark cloth fell away, and she stared into the bright, blinding light of a spotlight trained full into her face. She tried to remember Nicaragua, Kosovo, Belize. She'd been held captive before.

Then she heard the barking of distant dogs, feral and hungry, and felt a chill run down her spine.

"Hello, Temperance."

The voice was electronically altered, devoid of tone and inflection. It was a man's voice, she was certain, but she did not know where it was coming from. For a brief, hysterical instance, she wanted to make a joke about finally understanding what "surround sound" meant.

The ground underneath her feet was cement, cold. The chair was made of metal. Beyond the shadows, she could make out small windows lining the border of the walls. She couldn't identify any figures, human or otherwise.

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

She flexed her fingers behind her back. The knots were traditional sailor's knots, complex and guaranteed to hold. She could feel her hands starting to go numb. The gag in her mouth was damp with saliva and tears.

"Think of this as an experiment. You enjoy experiments, don't you? Well then, this is my way of... showing my understanding of your procedures." Something moved in the darkness, and the image coalesced into a uniformed medical attendant in white scrubs, his face obscured by a mask and bandanna. He held a small metal tray in hands. On it was a syringe, filled with a deep blue liquid, and a small glass bottle filled with the same liquid.

"You see, Temperance, I know how that mind of yours work. You remember everything, don't you? An eidetic memory cultivated by your natural predisposition to learning as well as a competitive academic streak. Good qualities, I am told." The voice crackled around her, savoring each word. "However, you also remember the bad things - the way your parents abandoned you, how your brother walked out on you, the string of foster homes you had to live through. I am sorry, by the way, for the way my associates handled you. I am sure you were reliving the way your foster father locked you in the trunk that one time. Clumsy child."

She gritted her teeth, her face turned resolutely away from the spotlight, from the silent man standing beside her.

"And even now, at the top of your field, you are still plagued by your fear of abandonment. Your best friend has found love. She is about to be a mother. Your partner is in love with another woman. Even your place of reason saw it fit to place someone else as your superior, not trusting the way you can run a lab. You are second-rate, Temperance, and you've been second-rate all your life."

_That's not true_, she thought to herself desperately, clinging on to her memories: the glow on Zack's face as he finally received his doctorates, the way Angela's face would light up whenever she agreed to go shopping or dancing or going through art galleries during quiet Sunday afternoons. And Booth... how could she not see the way he smiled at her over fries, the way his eyes brightened whenever she walked into a room, the warmth of his arms around her? _That is not true_, she repeated in her mind, over and over again. She had the facts, the evidence. She was cherished. She was loved. She was, for the first time in her life, not alone.

The man beside her moved closer, and picked the syringe off the tray. She cringed away, ready to run. But they had bound her feet to the legs of the chair, and no matter how much she struggled, the bonds held.

"Think of this as a blessing, Temperance. We are able to make you forget. We will give you a new life - a life free from all this pain, from all this sadness. We will give you what you want: happiness."

She tried to move away, but all she managed to do was tip the chair over so that she crashed on her side, her right arm pinned down underneath her own weight. The doctor (was he even a doctor?) approached her form, bent down, and plunged the needle into her shoulder. She watched in horror as the bright blue liquid pulsed through the syringe, flowing beneath her skin. A numbness overtook her, and she could feel the adrenaline pumping through her system slowly taper off. She was suddenly tired. So tired. Her eyes fluttered shut.

"That's right, Temperance. Sleep." The voice was now comforting to her ears. She could feel her grip on reality slipping. Shadows and light moved and flowed around her like an endless sea. She felt someone lift her chair right side up, her bonds being loosed. Waves crashed against her body, buffeting her one way, and then another. She knew she should escape, should run from wherever she was, but these hands were soft and warm and she knew they were undressing her, leaving her naked, but these were impersonal hands, summer waves on a sunlit shore, and they wrapped her in something warm and fluffy and before she knew it, she was lying horizontal on clouds, wrapped up in a cocoon of silk and shadows.

"Sleep."

The last thing she remembered before slipping into oblivion was that somebody was holding her hand, her right hand (for some reason, this was important...) and slipping something off her fingers. But then sleep, delicious sleep, overtook her, and Temperance Brennan fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 1: Puzzle Pieces

**Title**: An Unlikely Courtship

**Rating**: T

**Summary**: When a mysterious group takes away Temperance Brennan and wipes her memory, will Booth be able to find her and bring her back? Set sometime during Season 6, before Hannah's departure. AU.

**Disclaimer**: Characters from _Bones _are the property of Hart Hanson and 20th Century Fox. No money is being made out of this work of fiction.

* * *

Chapter One

When he woke up, it was to an empty bed. The sheets were smooth and cool underneath his touch, her form absent from the bed they shared. He vaguely remembered Hannah telling him about some kind of interview on Capitol Hill, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember what it was about or with whom. Shaking his head, he slowly moved off the bed and shuffled towards the bathroom to begin his morning routine.

When he was finally dressed in standard FBI suit, coat, and tie (bright orange this morning, with a pattern of ducks) and had coffee brewing in the small kitchen, he finally remembered to check his phone. Scrolling through the messages - a reminder from Rebecca to pick up Parker after school on Thursday, the usual message from Hannah saying that she would be home late and could he pick up a burger with all the trimmings for her on the way home from work later, Caroline reminding him of his next court date - and wondered why Brennan hadn't called yet. They were supposed to interrogate a suspect that morning, and she was strangely silent.

Tipping the pot into a travel mug and pouring a thimbleful of milk into the black mix, he pressed "1" on his speed dial and lifted the phone to his ear. The drone of her ringtone filled his ear until it clicked to voicemail. "Hello, you have reached the voice mailbox of Dr. Temperance Brennan. This is not actually a physical box, but you may still leave a message that will eventually reach her... me, that is... at the sound of the tone." He rolled his eyes in amusement at her pre-recorded voice.

"Hey Bones," he said, giving the travel mug a cursory swish before grabbing his badge, gun, and keys from the kitchen counter and heading out of the apartment. "We've got an interview with Kushner at ten, remember? Up and at 'em, sunshine, I'm swinging by your place in fifteen." He hoped that she was in the shower while he was leaving his message - she'd be ready by the time he parked at her building. "Make sure you've got clothes on. I don't want to see any of your girly bits," he warned teasingly. "None of that biological imperative stuff, all right? I'm a gentleman." And with that, he flipped his phone shut and sauntered his way out the door.

* * *

He hadn't been to the Jeffersonian in awhile - and as much as it galled him to admit it, he was trying to avoid her, at least until the new status quo had been established. He was well aware that Hannah didn't fit in anywhere, that in the grand narrative that was Temperance Brennan and Seeley Booth, everyone thought that they were meant to be together. Well, he thought that too, until she told him her heart wasn't fucking open enough for him and that she couldn't fucking change. But now, damn it all to hell, now he just needed to make sure she was okay. So if he was breaking a million and one traffic laws to get to the Medico-Legal lab, then fine. It was worth it to his hammering heart.

He parked at the employees' parking lot underneath the cavernous building and jogged towards the elevator. His feet still remembered the twists and turns of the narrow corridors leading to the glass doors of the lab, and he made it there in record time. Jim, the daytime guard, gave him a broad grin. "Welcome back, Agent Booth." He nodded cursorily to the other man, his eyes already scanning the brightly-lit room where blue-coated scientists and technicians scurried like busy ants, each intent upon their task at hand. He bounded up the platform, quickly swiping his card, and barreled right into Cam, who was examining fresh remains on one of the illuminated tables.

"Seeley!" she said in delighted surprise, her dark eyes alight. She gave him a quick hug. "What brings you here?"

"Bones," he said, struggling to keep the panic out of his voice. "Is she here?"

Cam cocked a carefully curved eyebrow in surprise. "I was under the impression that you were going out to interview a suspect today for the Lambert case. You know, classic wife murdered and buried in the garden whodunit?"

"Yeah, I know." He pressed his lips into a thin, straight line. "I called her up this morning to let her know I was picking her up and then heading to lockdown to interview the gardener. It went to voicemail. I thought she was just taking a shower, but when I got to her apartment... it was empty. The door was unlocked, but there was no sign of forced entry, of a struggle. Her bed was slept in, so she was definitely there last night. But aside from that... nothing."

"Hey, man!" Hodgins bounced up the stairs, peeling the gloves off his hands. "You're back. Did you find the bad guys yet?"

Cam turned to him. "Dr. Brennan is missing," she informed him in a clipped tone. Booth nodded.

"What?"

"Look, she's not at her apartment and her door was unlocked. I came here to check whether she slept in her office again, but Cam says that she hasn't come in yet." Booth ran a nervous hand through his hair. "Has anyone else heard from her?"

Angela swept through the small group, clipboard in hand and a twinkle in her eye. "Has it ever occurred to you, Studly, that she might just be relieving those good ol' biological urges of hers somewhere else?"

"No." Booth shook his head. "There's something wrong. Bones never leaves her door unlocked."

"Maybe she was in a rush?"

It was Booth's turn to raise an eyebrow. "We're talking about Bones here. She does everything carefully. By the book. That woman probably has her receipts filed and color-coded."

Hodgins nodded in agreement. "She does. I devised her system for her."

Angela rolled her eyes. "Well, what can we do? It's Brennan. You know how pig-headed and independent she can be. And while I am normally not the voice of reason in this place, I have to remind you that we have no proof she's in danger either."

"She's right, Booth," Cam said. "We'll call you when she gets in. Most likely, she's just lost track of time."

"Bones doesn't lose track of time, Cam."

"She's only human."

"Dr. Saroyan?"

Everyone turned to the security guard poised at the bottom of the platform stairs. He held a small package in his hands. "A delivery for you. It's clear."

Cam nodded and took the envelope from the guard. An odd silence fell on the group as Cam flipped the envelope. Her name was printed on the back of the official-looking stationary, along with the Jeffersonian address. Hodgins quietly gave her a sharp-looking probe that she slid between the flaps and pried the envelope open. Out tumbled a piece of paper and a familiar-looking ring.

Angela gasped. "That's Bren's ring."

Booth's heart plummeted to his feet. "Shit," he swore. "Someone took her. How could I be so stupid?" He paced up and down the platform, his hands clenching into fists. "How... who could have... oh _fuck!_"

Three sets of eyebrows shot up. "Ah, Booth," Hodings began nervously. "There's something written on the piece of paper."

"Treat that as evidence," he said shortly, as Cam grabbed a glove from the box Angela offered her and held the sheet between the latex. "I want to know who wrote it, who sent it, where it came from, anything that can tell us where Bones is."

"It's short," Angela said, peering over Cam's shoulder to read the typed words. "It says 'Don't worry, she's safe. And she won't get hurt anymore.'" Everyone looked at Booth, who didn't even try to meet their gaze. "What does he mean by that?"

"How did he know?" Booth whirled around. "We never told anyone."

"Told anyone about what?"

Booth gritted his teeth. It was all going to hell in a handbasket anyway. "Last year... I... I asked Bones if she, you know, wanted to take our partnership further..."

Angela's voice was quiet. "And she turned you down, didn't she?"

"Yeah." His eyes misted over, and he desperately didn't want to cry in front of the squint squad, for God's sake. "She said... she said she didn't have my kind of open heart."

Cam was the first one to step forward. She placed a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder. "I understand now," she said quietly. "This explains everything."

"Yeah, but it doesn't explain why that sonofabitch took her in the middle of the night!"

"Hodgins had already grabbed a tray and petri dishes. "Don't worry, Booth," he said. "If there's anything in this paper, anything at all, abotu Dr. B's whereabouts, I will find it. And I will tell you. And we will find her."

But Booth had already turned his back and was walking down the steps and out of the lab.

* * *

"Honey?"

For all her journalistic experiences, Hannah Burley never understood the meaning of the expression "standing in the middle of a war zone." After all, when you're knee-deep in corpses in the desert, or hearing the rapid-fire staccato of machine guns in the distance, it was hard to compare that to living in the city. And yet when she opened the door to his - _their_ - apartment, she was met with a vertiable tornado of _things_.

Clothes were scattered all over the floor, CDs strewn haphazardly across the normally neat counter, sports paraphernalia leaning against various bits of furniture that were pushed out of place. And in the middle of it all sat Booth, rummaging through what looked like another boxful of items, throwing what he didn't need in the air.

"Seeley?"

She'd just come home after three days in Georgia, listening to speeches by prospective political opponents of the President's party. She'd barely managed to keep in touch with her boyfriend; she was either busy or asleep, and she suspected that he was, as well. Still, she didn't expect this level of mess. Or the way he was ignoring her.

"Seeley?"

He finally looked up. There was a broken-down, wild look in his dark eyes, and it looked as though he'd barely slept in the past few days. His dress shirt was rumpled and stained, and she spied his tie sitting in what looked like half a glass of orange juice. He had a pile of files open on the coffee table - photos, police reports, DNA profiles, 3D renderings - all spread out like jigsaw pieces.

She lifted an eyebrow. "What's going on?"

He took a deep breath. "I can't find her."

"Who?"

"Bones." He gave her a mournful, puppy-dog look. "They took my Bones."

Hannah's bag slipped from her shoulder at his possessive words. "Seeley... Seeley, what happened?" she asked as she sat down beside him. Now she noticed that all the files on the table were about their cases, about people they had put away... people who might have a reason to come after Temperance.

"She... Hannah, she's missing. We can't find her."

"And you've gone through everything?"

He nodded. For the first time, she noticed how drawn and pale he looked. "We've gone through her apartment, the lobby, everything. There's nothing to indicate the presence of someone else other than her. The security tape to her building was doctored and no matter what Angela does, she couldn't even get a partial image off the files."

"The door man?"

"He was out like a light on that night. Cam found traces of some kind of sleeping chemical in his water bottle. They must've laced it."

"Who's 'they'?"

"Whoever took her!" He ground the heels of his palms into his eyes in exhaustion. "Look, Han... I have to find her."

She rubbed his back soothingly, trying to stem the panic that she could feel was radiating in waves from his body. "Look, honey, the FBI is doing everything they can, right? You have to let the techs and the others do their job and figure out _where_ she is first. So you can do your FBI rescue tactics and get her the hell out of there."

Booth clenched his jaw. "They sent back her ring."

"Her ring."

He pulled a small evidence bag out of his pocket and held it up to the light. A slim silver band with a pattern of sapphires glinted in the living room lights. "Her mother's ring. It's passed down in their family, mother to daughter. Her mom never managed to give it to her, on account of what they were doing at the time. God, she must be devastated when they took this away from her." He cradled the piece of jewelry carefully in his palm. "It was her most prized possession."

Hannah bit her bottom lip, her hand still automatically rubbing circles at the small of his back. There it was again - that uncomfortable _otherness_ that she felt whenever Seeley spoke about Temperance. Lovingly, reverently. As though... he was in love with her.

"Well it's late," she said awkwardly. "I need some shuteye. Come to bed soon, okay?"

"Yeah." He'd already shifted away from her and buried himself back into the paperwork. "Good night."

"Good night."

She paused at the entrance of the bedroom. "I love you."

"Yeah." He didn't even glance up.

* * *

**Author's Note: Hey there! If you've gotten this far, welcome to my new fic! It's got a bit more in terms of plot than my previous offerings, but I still hope you like this. :) I've got this story plotted out, so I'll try and post regularly in between work, personal life, and real-life writing projects. Also, do remember that I'm doing this without a beta, so I hope that if you spot any inconsistencies or mistakes, help me out here. :)**

**If you're liking this so far, do drop a review (or several, LOL). It helps speed up the writing process, y'know. **


	3. Chapter 2: Falling Into Place

**Title**: An Unlikely Courtship

**Rating**: T

**Summary**: When a mysterious group takes away Temperance Brennan and wipes her memory, will Booth be able to find her and bring her back? Set sometime during Season 6, before Hannah's departure. AU.

**Disclaimer**: Characters from _Bones _are the property of Hart Hanson and 20th Century Fox. No money is being made out of this work of fiction.

**Author's Notes**: All right, before things get out of hand - here's some things I will probably do/not do in this story. Just so we're clear, yeah? :)

1) I will probably not explain _how_ Brennan's memory was altered. Was she injected with a massive liquefied dose of magic mushrooms? Were they nanobots that altered the cellular make-up of her brain? I have no idea. I will probably not explain it. You are, however, free to think about it. And about who kidnapped her in the first place.

2) Unfortunately, Hannah will still be around for a couple of chapters. I don't want to do what HH & Co. did. Her departure will make sense, simply because that's what the pace of the story dictates. But hang in there! We'll get to some lovin' soon.

3) I will, later on, if the fates allow and this story follows the general outline I have, probably upgrade the rating of this story to an M. :D

For those who've left comments, favorited this story on , and in general are following along, thanks so much! :) I missed writing fic, and hopefully this takes you on an interesting journey that's not your typical B&B love story.

Phew, that was quite a long author's note. Shall we see how Brennan is doing?

* * *

Chapter 2

As far as assignments went, Ted Kofner mused, this was quite simple. And easy. And he liked easy - life had dealt him a difficult card, and he felt that he'd acquitted himself well, both with the Belgrade assignment and the Libya deal he'd brokered for his employer - and so, when this opportunity came along, well, he wasn't going to say no.

He looked over the documents one more time. Her new identity was Catherine Tate, science teacher at St. Bridget's School for Girls. She handled AP Biology and the History Club. He supposed that high school students, no matter how advanced, would not be ready to study anthropology, at any rate. She lived in a tidy white house in the suburbs, a twenty-minute drive from the school. Her parents were deceased, and she was an only child. Kofner pursed his lips. He hoped that there were no Temperance Brennan novels in the school library - he'd already scoured the entire town of Hope Springs, Mississippi, and bought all the copies he could find, and paid the booksellers a handsome fee to cancel the shipments. That would be awkward, for this woman to see her face at the back of a book. Committing all the details to memory, he slipped from his car and headed towards the hospital entrance.

"Hello." He flashed the nurse at the reception desk his most disarming smile. "I'm Agent Donovan from Witness Protection. I'm here to see Ms. Tate."

The pretty brunette blushed and checked the computer screen in front of her. "I'm afraid I have to see some ID first, Agent Donovan. Hospital protocol." Her voice was young and wavering, and he knew that she was probably stepping out of nursing school the first time today. He whipped out his badge from his belt and allowed her to peruse it. "All right," she said. He glanced down at her name tag. Macy Rogers. It would be good to remember that. "She in room 457. Fourth floor, down the hall and take a right."

"Thanks, Macy," he said, earning another blush.

He sauntered through the bustling hospital and made his way to the fourth floor. The elevator doors opened on the Psychology Ward, a neutral blue-and-white affair, and followed the rooms until he reached 457. He peered inside the room. She was beautiful, he granted her that, despite the fading bruise on one side of her face, the bandage encircling her head from where the surgeons had to drill a hole to reduce the swelling, and the confused pinch of her forehead. The television was turned on, but he knew she wasn't watching it. An IV snaked from her forearm to the bag that hung above her bedside.

He knocked politely and turned the knob. "Good afternoon," he said. "My name is Agent Donovan."

She nodded slowly. "Hello. I would express pleasure in meeting you, and introduce myself, but I'm afraid I have no recollection of that as of the moment." She smiled wryly. "Retrograde amnesia, according to the doctors."

"I am sorry to hear that." He took out an envelope from beneath the voluminous folds of his trenchcoat. "But I was the officer who reported your accident two weeks ago, when you were knocked unconscious by a what seemed to be an organized burglary of your home. We had paramedics bring you in. Your brain was bleeding, and you were in surgery for almost seven hours. If we didn't get to you when we did, we would have lost you."

"Then I owe you my life."

"Merely doing my job, ma'am." He gave her the folder. "We've compiled your documents from public records. Your school was the one who recognized the photo we circulated within the community."

"Catherine Tate," she read aloud from the file. 33, no family, only child. A biology teacher. Well, that explained her understanding of the medical procedures when the doctors came in. She must've taken at least several anatomy courses in her life. Her mind swam. Somehow, learning her identity was not as illuminating as she thought it would've been.

"I know it's quite overwhelming, Ms. Tate - "

"Please. Call me Catherine. After all, you were the officer who responded on the scene."

"Well, actually, the police on the scene called me up. I work for Homeland Security. The burglars who were in your neighborhood were of the terrorist sort, if you know what I mean."

"Nevertheless, I insist."

"Then you must call me Justin."

"Very well, Agent Donovan."

He smiled. "Justin." He was relieved when she returned his smile.

"Now then," he said, all business once more. "You'll see that your affairs are in order. The burglars were unable to actually steal anything, thanks to your electronic alarms, but I suppose you'll want to see for yourself."

"A rather difficult thing there Agent D- I mean, Justin." She gave a self-deprecating laugh. "I don't even remember who I am."

Kofner dropped on the visitor's chair near her bedside and gave her a piercing look. This woman was intelligent - the best in her field, according to the dossier - and now she was reduced to an ordinary human being sitting in a hospital room, attempting to remember her life. Or rather, the life they presented to her on paper. What was an identity in this day and age, if not a set of officiated documents, stamped and signed and sealed by whatever governing body you happen to be born in, or adopted into. And yet... there was something beguiling about the way she methodically went through the documents he gave her, drinking in every detail. Her auburn hair captured the late afternoon sunlight filtering through the Venetian blinds that covered the windows across the room, momentarily turning the strands into burnished bronze.

"Justin." Her voice, melodious despite the apparent lack of use. "I'm afraid I'm not sure what to do now."

He nodded in understanding. "I am told that you will have another MRI scan soon, perhaps tomorrow or the day after, to see if the swelling in your brain has gone down, and your internal injuries healing. And then you will be discharged and one of our security vehicles will take you back to your home. I assume a psychologist of some sort will be assigned to your case to facilitate the recovery of your memory, or at least assist you in adjusting to your life."

She made a face. "I hate psychologists."

He laughed. "Perhaps there is something in your file about that. Or ask your friends, your colleagues."

"Perhaps." Her blue eyes were placid as she turned her gaze at him. "And yourself, Justin? What will you be doing after this?"

"Go back to the office, I suppose. At least seeing a beautiful woman before I leave makes it easier." _Now, where did that come from?_

"Well then." She seemed quiet for a moment. "Perhaps I could invite you to a meal once I am discharged from the hospital and all things are in order. To thank you. I probably wouldn't be here without you."

Before he could reply, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled out the small device and glanced at the caller ID. _Oh shit_. "Will you excuse me for a moment, Catherine?"

She nodded as he slipped out of the door and into the hospital hallway, making sure that the door was shut behind him. "Sir," he replied, his tone shifting.

"Well done, Ted."

"I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean, sir."

"Accept her invitation. I need someone to keep an eye on her, see if the experiment is successful. You are in the perfect position."

"But sir, the Turkmenistan assignment - "

"I will assign Harold. He will not do a better job than you, but a more than adequate one."

"But she thinks I'm - "

"You've been trained better than this, Ted. I'm sure you'll figure something out. I'll keep in touch. Enjoy dinner." The dial tone filled his ears. He shook his ears, tried to clear his head. Somehow, he knew that lying in itself was an art - but maintaining a lie? He wished he was better prepared than this. He took a deep breath and opened the door again.

"Is everything all right?" she asked as soon as he entered. She was now sitting up on her bed, sheets of paper and photographs spread across her lap.

"Yes. That was my superior. He's assigned me as your protective detail for the next few days, at least until the psychologist clears you."

She raised a questioning eyebrow. "I didn't know Homeland Security assigned protective details to victims of assault and burglary."

He met her gaze. "It's more... a sense of personal responsibility. I hope you don't mind."

She considered this for a moment. "While a part of me would prefer that I process all this information independently, it seems prudent to accept your offer of security." Her fingers absently traced the outline of the bandage encircling her head. "I am... still unsure about the details of the burglary, and how I was hurt."

"That's probably your brain telling you it's not a good idea to think right now."

She laughed, and he was surprised to find that he liked her laugh. It seemed... uninhibited, free. Here was a woman whose brain was scrambled and memories re-wired, and she could still laugh. There was something undeniably liberating about that.

* * *

It had been five days, and there were still no clues about her whereabouts. The FBI techs and the Jeffersonian squints had already combed through her apartment, but came up lacking in clues. Even Angela had conceded defeat - whoever had tampered with the video footage in Brennan's lobby had done so expertly, to the point where she could try to disassemble the footage pixel by pixel that just come up with a load of crap.

Cam had alerted the Jeffersonian board and while they expressed their concern, a new forensic anthropologist still had to be located, at least temporarily, and assigned Brennan's museum duties to Clark Edison, who accepted the responsibility graciously and was given a small temporary office near Bone Storage. Booth had alerted Max, who was in Costa Rica (or was it Florida? San Francisco?) and promised to keep his ear on the ground and track down the assholes who kidnapped his daughter.

Booth had taken to sleeping with his phone in his hand, usually not even bothering to take off his clothes. He was tempted to crash in Brennan's office, where the couch still smelled of her skin, and he could pretend that she would walk into the room any minute and scold him for leaving his shoes on when he stretched out on the sofa. But he felt that it was inappropriate - he was with Hannah now, wasn't he?

And yet, he felt lonely in Hannah's company. They had the occasional dinners at the Founding Fathers or at the diner, or a new restaurant in some of the trendier places in DC, watched movies, vegged out on the couch. When she touched him, he reciprocated. But he felt closed-off, alone, sad. He didn't want to talk to her about Brennan and what her loss meant to him, carefully filing it into his mental cabinet of Things Hannah Should Never Know About. She doesn't know why he never drank tequila anymore. Hannah didn't know the names of all the bones in the body, or that his favorite ice cream flavor was mint chocolate chip from this old-fashioned soda joint near the Hoover, or that he gambled heavily while Rebecca was pregnant with Parker. Hell, she usually wasn't even in DC whenever Parker would be staying over for the weekend.

Now she was standing in the middle of the bedroom in her panties and a pale yellow tanktop covering her breasts. Booth sat in bed, leaning against the heavy wooden backboard, watching her pack for another trip. Her hair was piled up in a messy bun on top of her head, and he could see the small butterfly tattoo she had at the base of her spine. He never liked that tattoo. She said she got it during college, on a dare; never told her about his own tattoos on his wrists. Only Bones knew about them.

Only Bones knew everything.

Hannah walked back and forth from the bathroom, carrying toiletries."Long trip?" Booth asked.

She gave him a sunny smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "I'm being sent up to Quebec for a few days."

He nodded. "Pack warm then."

"I know. It's not my first time in Canada."

"When will you be back?"

"Why does that matter to you?"

He huffed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She paused in the middle of pulling her jeans up her slender legs. "Exactly what it's supposed to mean. I get it, Seeley, your partner is missing, but that gives you no right to mope and groan when you're with me. I mean, it's like you lost your freakin' puppy!"

Booth sat up from the bed. He could not believe he was hearing these words from his girlfriend's mouth. _She's not a consolation prize_, he'd said defensively that night in the car. But now, hell, he wasn't sure that he was even right defending her anymore. "Bones is my partner for the last six years. We've been through life and death and everything in between. What we have... transcends everything I've done my entire life. So I'm sorry if you feel like I've been a stick in the mud the past few days because I'm doing everything I can since my _partner_ is missing and I can't..." He gritted his teeth. He couldn't even say it.

_I can't live without her._

She slipped a sweater over her head and undid the bun so that her golden tresses spilled down her shoulders. "Look, Seeley, this may sound really callous but someone has to say it to you: you can always get a new partner. Who knows, maybe this time it wouldn't even be a squint. You still get to do your crime-solving and your do-gooder routine, saving the world one criminal at a time. But I'm the only one of me, the only person you could love."

He pushed himself off the bed and walked towards her. His mind was reeling from all the stupid, selfish, callow words that were spilling out of Hannah's mouth. She backed up for a moment, unsure about the sudden anger that flickered in his eyes. "Bones is more than my partner. She is my friend. My best friend. She is the only one who understands what I've done, what I've been through." He spoke slowly and carefully, advancing towards Hannah. "So no, you're wrong. There are plenty of women like you. There's only one of her."

Just then, Booth's phone beeped with an incoming message. He slowly backed away, taking his eyes off Hannah. She took the opening and grabbed her bag from the bed and shuffled out of the room without a backward glance. He barely registered the doors opening and closing as she left the apartment. His eyes were glued to the words on the screen.

It was from Hodgins.

_I think I know where she is._

_

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**A/N: Once again, thank you so much for all your comments and constructive criticisms! :) So what did you think of this part?**


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